Establishment of the first stool bank in an Eastern European country and the first series of successful fecal microbiota transplantations in Bulgaria.

Objective: For safe implementation and broader application of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), quality controlled stool banking is a must. Establishing a stool bank is a complex, time-consuming, and expensive process, making it a real challenge in an Eastern European country. We aimed to establish the first stool bank in Eastern Europe - in Bulgaria.

Deep Brain Stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus does not negatively affect social cognitive abilities of patients with Parkinson's disease.

Bilateral deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is a treatment option for patients with advanced idiopathic PD successful at alleviating disabling motor symptoms. Nevertheless, the effects of STN-DBS on cognitive functions remain controversial and few studies have investigated modification of social cognitive abilities in patients with PD treated with STN-DBS. Here we expanded the typically-investigated spectrum of these abilities by simultaneously examining emotion recognition, and both affective and cognitive Theory of Mind (ToM).

Polymorphisms in androgen metabolism genes AR, CYP1B1, CYP19, and SRD5A2and prostate cancer risk and aggressiveness in Bulgarian patients.

Background/aim: The aim of our study was to elucidate the role of polymorphisms in AR, CYP1B1, CYP19, and SRD5A2 genes for prostate cancer (PC) development in Bulgarian patients.

Materials And Methods: We genotyped 246 PC patients and 261 controls (155 with benign prostate hyperplasia and 107 healthy population controls) using direct sequencing, PCR-RFLP, SSCP, and fragment analysis.

Results: The allele and genotype frequencies of most of the studied variants did not differ significantly between cases and controls.

Spectrum and frequencies of BRCA1/2 mutations in Bulgarian high risk breast cancer patients.

Background: About 3885 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and 1285 die from the disease each year in Bulgaria. However no genetic testing to identify the mutations in high-risk families has been provided so far.

Methods: We evaluated 200 Bulgarian women with primary invasive breast cancer and with personal/ family history of breast cancer for the presence of unequivocally damaging germline mutations in BRCA1/2 using Sanger sequencing.